Seongpa’s First Press Conference and the “Silent Gun”
After becoming the fifteenth Supreme Patriarch of the Jogye Order in March 2022, Seongpa said good administration required harmony rather than mutual hostility. He described the belief that “I am right and the other is wrong” as attachment to self and person, and called hostile speech a silent gun worse than COVID.
The language sounds gentle, but I will fire a loud gun because I want reform. A monastery cannot be managed by asking everyone to get along while insects consume its rice. Corruption must be removed, and compassion must go first to workers punished for exposing the debts and abuses of powerful monks. Harmony aimed upward becomes protection of power.
The Four Marks Are Not Simply Self and Other
Seongpa used the Diamond Sutra’s four marks—self, person, sentient being, and life—to explain division between me and others. A practical lesson may use them that way, but their historical meanings are more precise. They correspond to ātman, pudgala, sattva, and jīva: four concepts that function as subjects of rebirth.
The Diamond Sutra repeatedly tells readers not to construct fixed marks. These four are not merely self, other, collective, and longevity. They are competing names for something imagined to survive death and carry “me” through rebirth.
Kumārajīva and Xuanzang
The Chinese Diamond Sutra widely read in Korea follows Kumārajīva’s translation. Its characters can easily be read as ordinary self, person, beings, and lifespan. Xuanzang, who studied in India and returned in 645, rendered the second term more explicitly as the mark of pudgala. He understood that simply writing “person” invited the mistaken contrast between self and other.
The Mark of Self Is the Eternal Ātman
Ātman was the true inner self sought by Indian religious practitioners. It was believed to persist after death, move into another life, and unite with the cosmic Brahman. The Buddha examined body and mind—the five aggregates—and found no such eternal subject. Non-self, anātman, denied the very entity many contemporaries were seeking. The first mark is therefore not ordinary pride but belief in a transmigrating ātman.
The Mark of Person Is Pudgala
After the Buddha’s death, schools differed over doctrine. Scripture retained stories of rebirth even while ātman was denied, producing the question: what is reborn? Pudgalavāda proposed a personal entity called pudgala. It was said not to be ātman, yet it performed the same function of carrying continuity across lives. The second mark rejects this pudgala.
The Mark of a Sentient Being Is Sattva
Sattva is commonly translated as sentient being and appears in bodhisattva. It refers to a being that, lacking awakening, is born repeatedly in various forms. Xuanzang translated it as an animate or feeling being. This mark is not merely “our group”; it treats the reborn sentient being as an enduring subject.
The Mark of Life Is the Jain Jīva
Reading the Chinese character for lifespan can suggest mere longevity. But jīva belongs to the Jain idea of a soul distinct from the body. Jain practice sought to free this soul from karmic bondage and rebirth. The fourth mark rejects jīva as another proposed carrier of personal continuity.
Rejecting the Four Marks Rejects a Subject of Rebirth
Ātman, pudgala, sattva, and jīva arise in different traditions, yet each supplies a “me” that continues through rebirth. The Diamond Sutra tells readers not to establish any of them. Creating another carrier through storehouse consciousness or some substitute concept repeats the same error.
The presence of pudgala also shows that the sutra is a later Mahāyāna text, not a verbatim sermon of the historical Buddha. It presupposes debates that developed in the schools after his death. Historical context clarifies what the four marks were designed to deny.
A Patriarch Must Keep Learning
The broader moral against division can be useful, but a patriarch speaking from the order’s central scripture should know the original vocabulary and history. I was taught the simplistic self-versus-other reading at university in 1994. Research and translations have long since made better information available. This is not secret knowledge; a short search reveals it.
When knowledge advances, an institution must update education for its monks. Repeating a decades-old misunderstanding in 2022 reveals that Buddhist study has stopped. The highest leader should know more than ordinary believers about the scripture his tradition elevates.
Reform Cannot Come from “Let Us All Get Along”
Seongpa must not call criticism a silent gun. I openly demand reform: cut away corruption, make finances transparent, remove compromised power holders, reinstate harmed workers, and place disciplined practitioners at the front.
The patriarch’s duty is not to say that everything is fine if people live harmoniously. He must identify wrongdoing, protect victims, and say how the order will change. Without current learning and institutional courage, his first message of harmony is not wisdom but an embarrassment.
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